#outlook

At the 23rd Automotive Outlook Symposium held in Detroit last week, participants representing manufacturing, banking, consulting and academia offered up predictions for 2016 and 2017. The general consensus: we’re in for a good time, possibly for a long time. The sales party will continue beyond 2017.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, which compiled median results from the symposium, the forecast predicts a total of 17.3 million vehicles sold in the United States this year. In 2017, the total number of sales is expected to dip ever so slightly to 17.2 million vehicles.

While some analysts (who might be sitting on large quantities of GM and Ford stock ) already dream of a sales rate between 15 and 16 million cars by year’s end in the U.S., CEOs of European carmakers are less gung ho.